


I Can't Quit Now, This Can't Be Right...

by Dividedpoet



Series: Without You [2]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Description, Humor, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Romance, Sexual Content, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dividedpoet/pseuds/Dividedpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Clint and Darcy are problem solving gossip buddies, Natasha is surprisingly angry at Clint's life choices, and Phil won’t let Clint return any of his…favors. But Bruce is enjoying the show, really he is.</p>
<p>A Continuation of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/687889">Can’t Erase, So I’ll Take Blame…</a>. I would definitely suggest reading that first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Quit Now, This Can't Be Right...

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Okay, so once against, too many notes:
> 
> For starters, if you don’t know, this is a continuation of my story "Can’t Erase, So I’ll Take Blame...". I would definitely read that before starting on this otherwise you'll probably be a little confused. You can find that in my profile.
> 
> Its part of a series I’m calling “Without You” which I’m planning to base around the ultimate arrivals of The Avengers at their romantic partnerships (as well as a shit ton of random one shots explaining in-story references and describing past interactions). I already have so many plans for this universe so I really hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to tell me if you notice any discrepancies or if you have any suggestions. I’m so excited to be writing again and am very grateful for the positive reception I received from people in this fandom. Thank you so much for all being so encouraging.
> 
> Anyway, this particular part of the story contains quite a nice chunk of Bruce/Natasha. I love this pairing and wish I could find more fics centered around it. I definitely intend to explore them more later on. Oh, and I absolutely adore writing Darcy and Clint’s cacophonic friendship. Good times!
> 
> The title is, once again, from "Without You" by David Guetta feat. Usher.
> 
> Again, this is un-beta’d and repeatedly re-written. I hope you enjoy it!

About 3 weeks after Clint had found out that his fiancé wasn’t dead he’d been sent out on a sniper job. Nothing too difficult, but the people he was going after had been big players in the cartel and they’d since moved to more profitable junctures. That’s why Hawkeye had been called in. These guys had some incredible security, and they also had some information that no one wanted made public. 

Things had been going relatively smoothly, with Clint perched up high and waiting for orders, when an alarm sounded and a spot light began searching the compound his team was set up in. The thought hit Clint before he heard Agent Sitwell’s voice over the comm., “Cover’s been blown. Pull out. Now.” 

Like a good solider boy, Clint hooked his bow over his shoulder and around himself before popping up and running for the edge of the roof. However, just as he was about to repel down the side, he heard a gunshot followed by a scream that echoed around the compound. 

“Phil!” 

Clint felt his chest seize and he froze just long enough to feel two bullets slice through the meat of his shoulder. He probably would have died in the fall off of the building if it hadn’t been for the junior agent scaling the wall to make sure Hawkeye hadn’t taken his ear piece out again. 

Phil met him in medical as they were suturing the holes. He obviously already knew what had happened. 

“There was a boy in the compound who was visiting his father - one of the security guards. In all of the commotion his father lost track of him. What you heard was the father screaming his name after he’d heard the gun shot.” 

“Huh,” was all Clint said. What the fuck did you say to the guy that _knew_ you’d been shot because you’d heard his _name?_

Both men remained silent as the poor nurse tried to speed-suture. When she was done she quietly excused herself. 

Clint, who’d been intently gripping the table and staring at the floor, finally looked over at Phil. What he saw there nearly wrecked him; Phil staring at him with love, amusement, and just a hint of worry. 

“You’re probably going to have to engage in some extra training courses designed to taper your reaction to certain trigger words. But the junior agent already gave his statement saying that essentially he thinks it was an honest thoughtless reaction brought on by recent trauma. They’ll just want to—“ 

“I can’t do this anymore,” Clint interrupted, having already re-fixed his eyes on the floor. 

He didn’t hear any sound other than Phil’s steady breathing and his own racing heartbeat for about 45 seconds, then Phil cleared his throat. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to need you to clarify, Agent.” There was the hard-ass Coulson Clint knew and loved for a completely different reason then he loved his Phil; Coulson could make it easy for you to hate him. 

“Oh, now I’m ‘Agent’,” Clint said, hurt tone masked with a bitter laugh. 

He heard shuffling then and could practically see Coulson crossing his arms over his chest, “Just do me a quick favor and clarify what ‘this’ is,” he said. Stone. 

“I can’t know that you’re sitting in SHIELD, waiting on me to get back—“ Out of the corner of his eye he saw Phil shake his head and open his mouth. “Shut the fuck up. I know you wait on me, I know you check the status of my ops regularly, and I’m not an idiot.” 

He looked at Phil again just as the other agent had snapped his mouth shut. He sighed. “It doesn’t feel rational but the fact is, knowing that someday I might not get to come home to you is distracting. When a mission is almost over I start thinking about what if’s; mainly, what if something happened to you while I was gone.” 

“Ending things isn’t necessarily going to change that.” 

Clint couldn’t help but smile just a little wistfully; for the thing he was about to give up. “Knowing I get to come _home_ to you most nights is distracting.” 

Coulson’s own hard eyes softened some, “That was never a problem before,” he began. 

“Now it is,” Clint interrupted. 

Phil wanted to argue, Clint could tell, but he wouldn’t let himself. Instead, he stood there for a few moments staring at his lover before he nodded. 

“Right,” he said, voice stiff again. However, he moved quickly into the room and placed a fierce kiss on Clint’s forehead. 

”It’s not forever.” Clint’s words were stern; not a request or a promise but rather an absolute. Either the emotion or the words themselves halted Coulson’s hurried steps out the door momentarily, but that was all. 

A little over two months passed before Clint even saw Phil again. He knew that Phil had been going to their apartment, but Clint assumed he was only doing that when the archer was out on missions. If it wasn’t for the way the dishes and Clint’s clothes kept magically cleaning themselves, he would have thought Phil had disappeared altogether. 

Then one day, after a particularly close call, Clint heard the words, “Agent Barton,” as if to disarm him before he was pushed into a janitor’s closet. Later Phil told him that he didn’t mean to, it had just been so long and he’d gotten carried away. 

“I think I could stand knowing that you’re around for a little while, Sir,” Clint had said almost breathlessly without thinking. That’s when these little _meetings_ had started. At the time, Clint figured Phil would just take his words for post-orgasmic haze. But after that first time things had quickly deteriorated into Phil pulling Clint into empty conference rooms and Phil pushing Clint into more janitors’ closets and Phil dropping to his knees on bathroom floors. 

Now, just a few weeks later and Clint’s back was being slammed against an interrogation room wall. Phil could feel the growl rumbling through his chest. His lips were back on the other man’s in seconds, swallowing the gasp that came out when he stuck his hand back into the tightly fitting uniform pants. 

“Fuck Phil,” Clint breathed against Phil’s lips, bucking into the firm grasp after having already been teetering on the edge for a few minutes there. 

Phil most certainly didn’t mind, he thought, as he listened to the encouragement and let his tugs pick up speed. He wanted to draw it out, he really wished his could. But Clint was already late for his debriefing and Phil didn’t want to make him any later than necessary. And yes, this was necessary. 

It wasn’t long before Clint was throwing his head back against the wall and digging his nails into Coulson’s sides (which he’d deviously uncovered while the other man was busy). Coulson didn’t slow his pace; he knew his former lover was close. No, he kept a steady rhythm and when Clint came apart in his hands, Coulson smiled. 

He gave a few more cursory tugs to make sure Clint was able to ride out his full orgasm before slowly pulling his hand out of Clint’s uniform. He could feel his own hard cock pressing against the fabric of his dress slacks, but he wasn’t about to do anything to change that. One: These little rendezvous were for Clint, not him. Two: His suit was too expensive to be desecrated. 

He never let Clint reciprocate, not once. Clint tried, of course he did. And every time, Phil stopped him. In the moments, it was all for Clint. Like a physical representation of Phil’s gratitude for Clint making it back from his ops alive. 

Once again, Clint tried to sneak his own hand down Coulson’s pants. The older agent was having none of it. Clint’s fingers didn’t even make it around the shaft before Phil was swiftly tugging on his wrist. 

“Come on, baby,” Clint whispered against Phil’s jaw. “Just this once, let a guy show his appreciation.” It was almost a purr and the audible velvet went right to Phil’s dick. But like any man trained to withstand torture, he held firm. 

“No, this is for you. It’s all about you…” 

“So I’ll associate happy orgasm time with returning from missions and I’ll be more inclined to come home safe?” Clint asked, half poking at the wound of his previous words and half hopeful that for once Phil might explain himself. 

Clint had a strong feeling that he knew what the post-op handies and bjs were about. But, it frustrated him to no end that Phil wouldn’t just say the words. Clint had his theories and ideas, but if Phil would just flat out tell him this stuff would be a whole lot more gratifying. All Clint knew for sure was that Phil was working real hard on the trust. That was his big thing; trust. Clint could understand that, since his lack of trust was the reason he and Coulson were technically classified ex-lovers. 

Clint was pulled out of his thoughts when, in response to his question, Phil gave a throaty chuckle and turned to leave. There was strain in the tone, a very obvious indicator that Phil was holding on by the skin of his teeth. If Clint were a nicer man he would have taken that as the signal to excuse himself as well. Clint really wasn’t that nice of a man and in barely any time he had Phil pinned with his belly against the wall and his now cup-less still half hard cock nestled against Phil’s clothed ass cheeks. 

It wasn’t that Phil was so easy to get the drop on; it was that Clint was an active field agent. They were kind of hard to control, all perfectly trained tightly coiled muscles. 

Phil let a low grown past his lips when Clint slowly rolled his hips, pressing Phil even closer to the wall. 

“I can’t say you’re being particularly fair, Agent,” Phil breathed, voice as controlled as he could manage. 

“Not trying to be fair, Sir,” Clint said before licking the shell of Phil’s ear. 

Phil shuttered and Clint backed off just slightly, intrigued. His mistake. Phil slipped away from Clint and had his legs swept out from under him in a matter of moments. 

“Mother fucker!” Clint shouted, but he sounded significantly more amused than he did angry. With a little wave Coulson was out the door and on his way to his own office. 

Clint just laid on the ground for a moment and thought about how stupid he was. 

\---- 

Clint met Darcy Lewis on the op that brought them Thor. He’d been assigned to her personal security team and they’d immediately taken a shine to each other. When Thor moved into the tower so did Jane and therefore so did Darcy. He still didn’t quite understand their relationship, but he could respect it. 

“I started this, Darc,” Clint said around a mouth full of pizza as he took a beer out of her hand. He was immediately rewarded for freeing her hand when she smacked him over the back of the head. 

“I know you did, you goddamn dumb ass,” she said before stepping over his legs and climbing onto the couch next to him. 

Clint rubbed the back of his head briefly before he let it drop back on to the couch. “Don’t you think he’s going just a little overboard, though?” he groaned. Darcy elbowed him in the ribs this time. “Hey! What the fu—“ 

“You told him you needed space or you were gonna get your ass killed on a mission,” Darcy pointed out. “I think you scared the shit out of him.” 

“But it was true! I couldn’t --” 

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You explained it to me like 17 million times when I called you a fucking dumbass the first trot around this rodeo.” Out of the corner of her eye Darcy saw Clint open his mouth to respond and she sighed, “Look, I get it. I mean, I don’t _get it_ get it, never had to make peace with the love of my life being dead and all. But, I kind of get it in that you thought it was what you needed at the time.” 

Clint’s mouth snapped shut. All of his training and this 22 year old political science major had him figured out in minutes. He wanted to call a recount. 

“I just don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to take it back,” Clint said after a few moments. “I’ve tried talking to him, setting him straight. He keeps telling me I only said it once but that once was more than enough and I obviously need more time than I think or some shit. He’s treating me like a fucking child.” 

When he looked over at Darcy this time she was giving him a pitying smile, “Can you blame him?” 

Clint shook his head. “No,” he mumbled before chugging down his beer. 

That was actually the problem. Clint didn’t know if Phil was right about him needing the space more than he was willing to admit to himself. But he did know that Phil felt as if he was doing Clint some service by staying out of his day to day dealings. 

Now that they’d all moved into the Tower it was a little tough to not see him regularly, but Phil clearly did his best…other than the after-mission times. 

“I miss waking up with him. Fuck, I miss making him co—“ Clint started but Darcy cut him off. 

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, EW do I _so_ not want to hear about you making Agent Cranky Pants into a woman.” 

Clint’s eyes widened comically and he leered at Darcy. “Would you rather I _showed_ you?” he said with an overzealous eyebrow waggle. 

Darcy was nothing if not very good at playing chicken. “You feel free to show me how that went any time you like,” she said with her own lecherous eyebrow waggle and lip bite for good measure. Darcy made no bones about it; she thought Clint was hot as hell and that his fantastic archer muscles were wasted on the gay men of the world. 

Before their game of Who Would Cave First could come to a crux, there was a throat being cleared at the entrance to the makeshift Avengers’ common room. Both Darcy and Clint looked over, their positions having switched and Darcy’s barely covered breasts hovering very close to Clint’s face. 

Bruce stood in the doorway with his peaceful yet mysterious little smirk. When he saw that he had their attention his smirk slid into a smile. “We’re heading out to get some food. You guys want us to bring you back anything?” 

Clint liked Bruce. Yeah, okay, scary green rage monster. But hey, they all had their flaws, right? 

Plus… 

Natasha was suddenly standing in the doorway as well, hand sliding across Bruce’s lower back. 

“They already have life-altering, horrible decisions to keep them full,” she said, her face masked to portray a flippant and casual Natasha. Bruce looked over at her and arched an eyebrow. Nat shrugged, “The pizza they just ate,” and then she was gone, vague mutterings of Russian drifting toward them in her wake. 

“That’s not what she was talking about,” all three remaining inhabitants of their little livingroom said in unison. 

The truth was Natasha had been very angry at Clint for months and all of the Avengers knew it. It wasn’t that they’d all been whittling their days away gossiping like bored housewives; Clint and Natasha had been involved in a very loud, very public fight about it. 

About three months before, just a few days after Clint and Coulson had made their _joint_ decision to take a break from their coupling for a while, Coulson had gotten reports from the handlers that Natasha was acting mildly distant toward Clint. Honestly, that was the only way they could describe Agent Romanov’s subtle tells; mildly distant, vaguely disinterested, eerily calm. 

Regardless, he scheduled the partners for a training exercise in the SHIELD gym. 

Clint’s first mistake was teasing Natasha by asking her if she was scared. She must have been waiting for a chance because, while everything that was Natasha’s well sculpted demeanor stayed perfectly in place, the anger that seeped into her blows spoke volumes. Where they were supposed to be practicing staying more in sync, Clint was apparently practicing getting his ass handed to him by an angry Black Widow. 

Typically they were pretty well matched up in any fight, fair or not. But Clint’s surprise at Natasha’s fervor was seriously throwing him off his game. “Jesus Nat, you mad bro?” 

It wasn’t until his feet had gone from under him and his head cracked against the floor that Natasha began speaking. Her tone was perfectly calm, if not slightly out of breath, but her words were scorching and obviously angrily translated. “You idiot child. You get up every day and pretend to be a big boy, ready to take on your next wave of penance. You ignore what’s right at your finger tips like you have no respect for what’s been given to you.” She wiped some hair out of her face. “It’s arrogance. You have this amazing gift; time and someone to love you, and you’re just wasting it.” 

“Are you fucking shitting me?” Clint had yelled from his place on the ground. He was up on his feet in moments, gingerly touching the skinned spot on the back of his head. After taking a moment to inventory the blood on his fingers Clint fixed his eyes on Natasha. “You’re lecturing me on self-inflicted martyrdom?” he’d practically boomed, surprised that he was actually that angry but deciding to roll with it. Dimly he’d registered Bruce entering the gym. “You have the fucking nerve to get on me for pushing aside what I want because I’m scared?” 

Natasha froze, having also cataloged the new entry into the room. 

”That is bullshit, Tash. You don’t get to do what you’re doing and then lecture me.” 

Then there was Nat with her eerie calm. “That’s incredibly different. Puppy eyes and hope do not a 10 year old love story make.” 

“Oh, right, Coulson was in love with me for 5 years before we got together. Uh-huh, I completely forget that…never!” He stalked toward her, “He has been chasing you since he met you; watching your every fucking move without flinching. He’s exactly what you need, Nat! Everything you’ve fucking hoped for since you were a little girl and first started setting up rules to cut yourself off--” 

Natasha punched him in the face. 

She left the gym after that, throwing over her shoulder that she felt she’d done enough for the day. Clint called Bruce over when his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. 

After they moved to the gym’s nurses station, Bruce helped Clint clot the blood. It was a lot of Clint sitting with his head tilted back. But that was fine; Bruce wasn’t really there for his nose bleed. 

“You gotta understand,” Clint began after Bruce asked if it was typical for Natasha to react in that way. “We lose people a lot,” he said with a shrug. “It’s part of the job, we both get that. But, Nat has this rule. You wouldn’t think she’d keep something this innocent, what with that creepy air of ‘I’ll kill you in your sleep’, but she does have this one rule: If you meet someone that can see what you see every day, what you do, and still look at you the same way, you have to keep that person.” He huffed out a laugh, “Bear in mind she made that rule up when she was 11.” Sure, she’d beaten the shit out of him, but they were soulmates. Both of them knew that. They both just wanted the other to be happy. 

From the corner of his eye Clint could see understanding began to dawn on Bruce’s face. “She thinks you’re blowing it and she needs one of you to end up happy,” Bruce clarified for himself softly, all childhood-psychological-assessment backed and doctor-y. 

Clint checked his rag and, seeing that the blood had stopped, tilted his head back down. 

“You know,” he said with a practiced casual air. “If someone were to make her see that she could be that person…” Clint trailed off and shrugged again. “Just saying.” 

Thankfully Clint and Bruce’s conversation had put a silver lining on the dark clouds. No more than a day or so later when everyone was supposed to be meeting in the common room for movie night they found Bruce and Natasha, Natasha’s glassy eyed gaze locked on Bruce as he declared, “I will never look at you any differently.” 

Her newfound romance didn’t take any of the heat off Clint, however. 

Bruce had rationalized, “If she truly believes what she says she does, then there’s no possible way she’ll be able to stay mad at you.” Then he’d smirked, “’Soulmates don’t have to braid each other’s hair.’” It sounded exactly like something Natasha would say. 

It had been comforting at the time, really. But now Darcy gave an exaggerate shiver at Natasha’s icy behavior. “I’m sorry, is it just me or did my nipples get hard.” 

With a chuckle Bruce left to go after Natasha while Clint finally shoved Darcy’s ass back onto the couch cushions. 

“Quiet, woman! I’m gonna try and find free gay porn.” 

\--- 

On the second Wednesday in February Clint came in from an assignment in Greenland with a particularly nasty case of pneumonia. He was shaking violently, had a high fever, and his breathing was incredibly shallow. On top of that, he pretty much looked like he had already died. Coulson walked over and kneeled down in front of the wheelchair they'd probably had to threaten Clint to get him to sit in. 

"Don't think you'll get a chance to show your gratitude for a safe passage this time around, Sir," Clint said, eyes amused but voice whispered and weak. Clint took an obviously pained gasp for air and suddenly a staff member from medical was there putting an oxygen mask on him and wheeling him away. 

No, Coulson wouldn't be showing his gratitude to Clint for quite some time; after being admitted into SHIELD medical Clint was diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrome and was admitted to the ICU. 

Natasha found Coulson sitting in Clint's SHIELD quarters. "I understand that he doesn't want to feel that way again but considering our jobs it isn't necessarily avoidable," he paused, like he was trying to gather his words. "I can't lose any more time with him, Nat," he finally said. "I can't sit at SHIELD and watch the man I love go out and nearly get himself killed regularly knowing that I didn't get to kiss him one last time before he left." 

For the first instance in a very long time, Natasha shamelessly looked at Coulson like he was an idiot. 

"Then go tell him that," she snapped. His Russian was pretty rusty, but he was fairly certain she muttered 'fucking simpleton' on her way back down the hall. 

She did make a very good point, though. They needed to stop this; Coulson needed to stop this. 

\--- 

Once again in their relationship Phil was right there when Clint found himself alone in a hospital bed. “You gotta stop making a habit of this, I’m gonna read something into it,” he said with a wink that was admittedly lazy. He still sounded terrible and weak. 

“The nurse on call said you’re stable,” Phil said with a forced smile. It was so hard to see Clint like that, sickly and pale with an oxygen mask sitting beside him in case. It was like the laying down version of how he looked when he’d been taken by Loki, Coulson had seen footage. 

Phil closed his eyes and took a breath before walking over and sitting in the chair at Clint’s bedside, “I’m afraid we’re at the point in our relationship where we need to clarify a few things again,” he began calmly, reaching forward to take Clint’s clammy hand. 

Clint looked up at the ceiling and gave a tired but genuine chuckle, “Oh yeah?” 

”I think it would be best for all parties involved if we were to go back to how things were,” Phil said, giving off very official airs. 

Clint furrowed his eyebrows, still looking up at the ceiling, “How things were?” 

Phil cleared his throat. “You’re mine; I just wanted to make that clear.” He pressed on before Clint could process the words and come up with a response. “I know that you’ve developed a flight response in emotional situations. So, I’ve been trying to get my fix of being near you without scaring you away.” 

Huh, selfish fellatio, who would have thunk it. 

“But I can’t keep doing this. I mean, I can do the sex. But I want the rest of it, too. I want all of you. I want to have you every second of the day that I can for as long as humanly possible.” He leaned up in his chair so he could look in Clint’s eyes. “And I’m good for you, you know I am.” Clint eyes widened a little in stubborn anger and Phil pushed on still. “I oversee your reports, Clint; you were happier when we were together and you got joy out of torturing your handlers significantly less.” He squeezed Clint’s hand, “I get it, I do; you experienced something ridiculously fucked up.” 

For some reason that word sounded very harsh coming out of Phil’s mouth. 

“And you experienced this thing on top of an onslaught of already ridiculously fucked up things. The problem is, I love you; I have loved you for 10 goddamn years and you loved me back. I gave you your space; I disappeared for as long as I could stand. But, just like you don’t think you can bear losing me again, I can’t watch you go out on any more assignments knowing that you weren’t mine when you left and you might never be mine again. So, you have to be mine. That’s honestly the only option.” 

As soon as Phil finished his hastily choreographed speech, Clint’s eyes began to droop. Phil sighed and sat back in his chair, intent on being there to go through the whole thing again next time Clint woke up. He’d been prepared for this, already stocked up on back dated mission reports. 

“Sir?” Clint mumbled. 

Phil, taken a little by surprise, leaned forward. “Yes, Agent?” 

The ghost of a smile quirked the corners of Clint’s lips with his eyes still closed. “Are you going to be here to remind me of that conversation when I wake up in a few hours?” 

”Yes, Agent,” he said, _Agent_ sounding like a term of endearment this time. 

”Will you remind me that I asked you,” he paused to take a ragged breath and Phil squeezed his hand tighter. “’Who else’s would I be?’” he finished 

Phil kissed his knuckles, “Of course, Agent.” 

"Thank you, Sir," and Clint fell back to sleep with his face turned toward Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I know I torture Clint a lot, but I kind of see him as someone that gets injured a fair amount when he’s off his game because of something Phil is involved in. So, now that things are getting fixed up he’ll be injured significantly less.
> 
> Also, the installment in this series will probably have more graphic sexual interactions, just a heads up.
> 
> But, again, I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading!


End file.
